An idiosyncratic literary tour round English parks and gardens

Navigation

Chelsea Fringe – London Garden No 10

Five Minutes Peace: a garden to sit in, a poem to read, and a prompt to write to … No 10. (Find out more about what this is all about here.)

THE POETRY POP UP GARDEN

The brainchild of landscape designer, Marian Boswall, the Poetry Pop Up Garden is a welcome addition to the Chelsea Fringe. I was lucky enough to read on it yesterday in the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral as part of the Chelsea Fringe in Kent, and the NGS Open Gardens Scheme. And look …. we had actual sun.

And in between readings, we wrote our own collaborative poem which we read out together later… a real buzz!

Here it is as today’s poem: I’m calling it Mixed Border because we wrote it line by line like the old-fashioned game of consequences…

The trees are getting hungry again,

chlorophylls crowd to the leaves’ tips

to devour a flash of sunlight

that trips like tongues through broken clouds,

pours like slow sand through water

and all the healing words, like flotsam

in the static of air that withstands the wind,

crowd with laughter and rhyme.

*

Grown from stone, stuck between sexes,

the statue watches trains swerve by its gate,

and I wonder will we ever recover?

Today we’re a landscape that doesn’t fit,

a shelf of sun in a mid-May shower

that I’ll keep in amber come December,

and forever, I imagine, thereafter.

*

Some flowers only open every century

like my heart, full of petals.

I’m counting out: He loves me

not. He (thirty-three)… he loves me not.

They say daisies in love are genetic mutations,

sometimes we all need extra petals

and a green travel chest to keep locked.

*

Here I remember that afternoon:

the constant tolling of the bells

wafts through sun-drugged air

that blows the commas off my page like pollen

like the dust which floats anywhere.

To create a garden is to write a love story –

lines that twine up balconies, bind trees

at the limbs, the roots.

We dedicated the poem to Marian as a thank you for making us such a beautiful garden to work in.

The Pop Up Poetry Garden will be at Canterbury Cathedral again today (Sunday) with special poets Jo Hemmant and Abegail Morley taking the stage, and then travels to London on Tuesday to be in the Potters Bar Garden (right next to the Mayor of London’s office). The excellent Emer Gillespie will be taking the stage there, together with special guests… Wouldn’t it be something if Boris nipped out of his office to read a poem or two? You can find out more here.

Watch my TEDx Talk

https://youtu.be/_KVNGzoGfrA

Order Digging Up Paradise

I'm delighted that my book on poetry, gardens and Kent is now available for order direct from the publishers, Cultured Llama.

Gardening writer, Lia Leendertz says of it: "On this poet’s garden tour, Sarah Salway writes of the gardens’ physical selves, of course, but also of the sensations they conjure, the memories they stir up and the glimpses of history that colour her perception. Each description is rich, layered, personal and moving. It is more like the way we all experience gardens than any garden writing I have come across."

SARAH SALWAY

During my year as Canterbury Laureate in 2012, I started to write a portrait of Kent through its gardens. It wasn't a botanical record or a 'how to' garden, but a creative personal response. I became fascinated with how the close focus of gardens brought in so many other things - history, landscape, cultural movement, personalities, and especially stories.

I've now extended this to gardens outside Kent, and even in art and music. This website records the poetry and stories I write, together with a little about my creative process.

I'll put up more gardens - and garden poems - as I go, but do click on 'Visit a Garden' to come on a virtual tour with me.

Please note that this are my original photographs and writing - if you would like to use any of it, please ask my permission first.